The field of photonics is expanding rapidly. The abundance of emerging devices includes new multifunctional devices that, to be practical, will require photonic circuitry to be jointly packaged with electronic circuitry. For example, there will be a need to integrate electronic processing within a single package with high-bandwidth optical input-output (I/O) and radio frequency (RF) photonics.
Great advances have been made in the packaging of electronic circuitry. For the new generation of photonic and multifunctional devices to achieve market acceptance, it will be necessary for the packaging of hybrid, standalone, and monolithic optoelectronic circuits to keep pace with similar advancements.
For example, optical fiber coupling to device packages continues to pose a challenge. Conventional methods use vertically coupled or side-coupled optical fibers. Vertical coupling is band limited and can introduce excess power loss. Although side coupling does not generally suffer these disadvantages, there remains a need for a dependable way to maintain the side-coupled fibers in position for the full product lifetime.